Collective Curating: Maier Musem Uses the Crowd as its Source

By Isabella Farias ‘18

Published February 2015

Thea Ezinga ‘15 (right) and Lindsay Brents ‘16 (left) 
discussed Burning Off, a 20th-century watercolor 
painting by Andrew Newell Wyeth,
 on the opening day of the exhibition.
 Photo courtesy of Phuong Tran ‘15

“Crowdsourced from the Permanent Collection: Randolph Curates” is the name of the new exhibition at the Maier Museum of Art, which premiered on Jan. 22 and scheduled to be on display up until April 22. The title is a good description of how the exhibit came together.

Crowdsourcing is the open call to a diverse group to apply their individual experiences, knowledge and preferences to the process of choosing which pieces will be put on display. Earlier last semester, an email was sent to the whole Randolph community, including faculty, students, and alumni that maintained their randolphcollege.edu email, to survey past and present community members’ preferences within the collection. Using an online catalog, about twenty people responded with their favorites and contributed to the College’s first crowdsourced exhibit.

Martha Johnson, director of the Maier Museum, holds dear to her the opportunity to have the community be involved.  “I intentionally plan exhibits and programs that connect with the curriculum at Randolph College. I know people in the local community that have strong feelings for pieces in the collection,” she said.

Members from the community peruse the
 “Crowdsourced” Exhibition during its
opening reception on Jan. 22, 2015.
Photo courtesy of OCR

The community within the Red Brick Wall is thrilled by the exhibit and by the pieces on display.  “I think it’s a fantastic idea. I love that the exhibit seems so varied, yet it all comes together seamlessly—just like a personal box of treasures,” said Callan Frye ’17, a Studio Art and Biology double major who has attended every exhibition at the Maier Museum since he started at Randolph College.

Dr. Mara Amster, Department Chair and Associate Professor of English, chose Red Umbrella (1972) by Colleen Browning (1929-2003). “I love it for the bright red, for mystery in her eyes, for the evocative mood. I love it because it makes me want to write the story of the woman, the day, the umbrella,” she shared.

Johnson also contributed to the exhibit and chose Pulse (1972) by Robert Remsen Vickrey. This is a piece of the artist’s son, who discovered his pulse for the first time; and Johnson chose it because of her “preference for figurative work.”

Johnson is proud of the museum and every collection that she has curated. “[The Maier] is an incredibly unique resource, especially for a school this size, and more students should take advantage of such an opportunity. We have [nearly] the whole history of American art,” said Johnson. Megan Einhorn ’15 would agree with Johnson. “We have more art than most people think, and it’s fun to dig through and expose yourself to the art that is close at hand,” she said.

Pleased with the response that the exhibit has gotten, Johnson plans to do another crowdsourced exhibition in the future, possibly one exclusive for alumni. Johnson is very passionate about the exhibit, and she enjoys learning why people like the pieces that they do. “The Maier offers a comfortable environment where artistic development and conversation can blossom. And students more than enjoy our little, yet big, museum within the red brick walls,” said Johnson.

Such a statement rings true to Katy Boyer ’16. Everytime she goes to the Maier, she is awestruck by the pieces in the collection and even “went weak at the knees when [she] saw an Andrew Wyeth piece in the new exhibit.”

The next exhibits to be put on display will be the Senior Studio Art Majors’ Exhibition on April 28 and the 104th Annual Exhibit of Contemporary Art in the fall of 2015.

Visual Artist Workshop at the Maier Museum

Written By Phuong Tran ‘15

Published February 2015

On Friday, Feb. 27, at 12:30 p.m.  the Maier Museum is hosting the Professional Practices for the Visual Artist Workshop. Participants will learn from professional photographer and experienced educator Jeffrey Allison from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA)  about building a career as a professional artist.

The workshop will be adapted to the needs of the individual artists and provide useful insight into topics such as photographing artwork, funding opportunities, networking with galleries and publications, and online marketing.

“Jeffrey is an excellent speaker and offered wonderful advice to the local artists and art students that attended,” said Danni Schreffler, Office Manager & Public Engagement Coordinator for the Maier Museum of Art. “I sat in for most of the workshop and found it really enlightening; he has a great perspective as an artist himself, on working with galleries and exhibiting work.”

Comings and Goings in Dean of Students Office

Written By Phuong Tran ‘15

Published February 2015

Last semester witnessed a major loss for the Dean of Students Office, with the leaving of Danielle Weaver, Associate Director of Residence Life, in November, and of Ben Foster, Assistant Dean and Director of Residence Life, in December. Since then, Resident Directors John Grundy ’14 and Abigail Smith ’14 have been responsible for housing and resident life, while a committee consisting of six staff members handle all issues related to student conduct. This arrangement is only temporary, as the College is seeking for two candidates to replace Weaver and Foster. 

Chris Lemasters, who used to work at Pennsylvania College of Technology as the Men’s Basketball Coach and Coordinator of Residence Life, has recently been hired to become the director of Residence Life. He is to start his job in March while the College continues to look for another assistant dean in the spring and summer.

Getting it Wright: Dorm Construction Continues

By Katya Schwab ‘17

Published February 2015

Cautionary orange construction fencing now encircles Wright Hall, providing the ever-reliable Randolph rumor mill delicious gossip about the anticipated renovations. The construction of Wright has been on the College community’s radar for over a year, inciting speculation about the plans for the dorm, which students it will house, what the interior will feature, and whether or not construction would ever be underway.

Spoiler Alert: one large flat screen TV, a gas fireplace, an elevator, and two laundry-rooms.

The construction of Wright Hall has included two phases. The first phase encompassed the beginning of the work for the new elevator and began after graduation in May of 2014. Phase two took longer to implement, but once plans were completed in October of 2014, construction began in December 2014. This second phase includes the completion of the elevator and renovations of the dorm itself.

Wright earned a sort of mythical reputation as a favorite dorm among the student body who valued Wright’s unique character as a dorm due to features such as the hardwood flooring.

According to Director of Buildings and Grounds John W. Wood, renovations include a refinishing of the flooring to a “like-new appearance,” making Wright hall the only dorm on campus with hardwood floors. Other original features, including the wood panel dorm and trim will remain, and any new work will be chosen to match the current features.

Features of Wright will include Wi-Fi, multiple electrical outlets in each space, and (drum-roll please) state-of-the-art heating and cooling systems with individual controls for each room, replacing the steam radiators.

“New furniture will be added to all rooms and spaces including the expanded lounge on the first floor,” commented Wood, adding that the first floor lounge “will feature wood floors, new sofas, chairs and tables, a large flat screen TV, and gas logs added to the fireplace.” The lounge will be extended due to new columns that lengthen the room to the adjacent entry hallway. In total, Wright will feature an elevator from Cheatham dinning hall to the fifth floor, five lounges, a kitchen, and two laundry rooms.

Upon the intended completion date, the rooms will be furnished before students arrive for the 2015-2016 school year. Wood stated, “It is hoped that pictures of the interior will be available,” so students may preview what the renovations look like before returning to campus.

Bracing for Change: Randolph Rolls Out New Course Schedule

Written By John Ruml ‘17

Published February 2015

The new schedule aims to set specific
periods to reduce conflicts and
alleviate difficulties during course scheduling.
Photo courtesy of Randolph College

Beginning with Fall semester 2015, the College will be implementing a new system that restructures the way it handles course scheduling. This new system, devised by Dean of the College Carl Girelli, intends to alleviate the stress that is faced by students and advisors during course scheduling.

“Because our current system causes a certain amount of overlaps and embedding,” explained Girelli, “a lot of students run into scheduling conflicts. It places an unnecessary limit on the kind of courses that those students are allowed to take.”

One common scheduling conflict arises when a student needs to schedule classes across multiple departments. One of these students is Will Webb ’16, a math major and a classics minor. “I had Calc III, Greek, and Physics all scheduled all at the same time. While I was able to work with my professors to reschedule those classes, there still remained a conflict on Mondays, so now I’m double booked.”

The new system seeks to eliminate this problem by establishing rigid, on-the-hour blocks for 3-credit courses. MWF classes will meet for three blocks a week of exactly 50 minutes per day and TTh classes will meet for two blocks a week of exactly 75 minutes per day. “This will allow us to use our time here more efficiently,” said Girelli, “not only to use more hours of the week, but also to use more days of the week.”

However, several faculty members feel as though the new system cheats their students out of valuable class time. “I understand that we need to alleviate concerns about scheduling,” says History Professor Marjorie Wheeler-Barclay, “but my concern is that this seems to have a particularly high cost for a not particularly high reward.”

The new schedule forces teachers that have been utilizing three 60-minute blocks per week to trim 30 minutes of class time each week from their 14-week course each semester. If you do the math, that adds up to 7 fewer hours of each class per semester—the equivalent of cutting two whole weeks from a course. “With tuition prices rising,” says Bentley Kennedy-Stone ’16, “It doesn’t make sense for students to be paying more, and getting less.”

“It is an unfortunate thing from several points of view,” lamented History Professor Brad Geisert. “Students are going to be receiving a watered-down version—well, perhaps it’s even fair to call it a ‘dumbed-down’ version—of the course. The courses will suffer in both breadth and depth.” Geisert is worried that by cutting time for class discussions about current controversies, students will lose a sense of the complexity of the material. “The one thing that I always loved about the College is that faculty had the freedom to teach the way they wanted to, but now it’s not going to be like that anymore.”

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools-Commission on Colleges (SACS-COC), our accrediting agency, defines a credit hour in its regulations as: “Not less than one hour of classroom or direct faculty instruction and a minimum of two hours out of class student work each week for approximately fifteen weeks for one semester…or the equivalent amount of work over a different amount of time.” For example, SACS-COC lets Randolph treat a 50-minute “Carnegie unit” as a full contact hour. Under the new schedule, 3-credit courses will still count for same amount of credits, even if they meet for 150 minutes instead of 180 minutes.

Math Professor Paul Irwin had the new schedule and the old schedule sitting side-by-side on his chalkboard. Arrows and question marks littered the board. “This edict from the Dean’s office came to us with very bad timing,” said Irwin, “but what really upsets me about this decision is the fact that neither faculty nor students were involved.” While Girelli’s new schedule was modeled on an earlier concept that faculty were involved in, this new schedule was not voted on by faculty.

Some professors, however, are cautiously optimistic about the change. English Professor Mara Amster hopes that it will give students more opportunities to take classes they’re interested in, while Adjunct Theatre Professor Patti Rapiejko hopes that the new schedule will address some of Randolph’s “woeful waiting list problems.”

“What this means for Introductory Physics,” says Professor Peter Sheldon, “is that I’ll have to restructure it into a 4-credit course instead of a 3-credit one. I probably should have done that already. Honestly, I don’t know if this new schedule is going to be a problem or not; there’s too many variables. It’s a test. It’s an experiment—let’s try it out and see.”

In the Wake of UVA: Re-examining Randolph’s Policies

Written By: Evan Robert Smith ‘17

Published February 2015

It is a new semester for us here at Randolph, which means a fresh start behind the Red Brick Wall.  No school, though, needs a fresh start quite like our central Virginia neighbors at the University of Virginia.  Last fall’s Rolling Stone article “A Rape on Campus,” about a female student’s gang rape at an UVA frat party, made headline news across the country.  Just two days after the article’s publication, UVA’s president suspended all Greek activities for the rest of the fall semester.  Though Rolling Stone retracted the article due to questionable journalism, UVA is still dealing with the aftermath of the accusations made since the article still exposes much of the potential dangers for sexual assault and rape in UVA’s Greek life.

Randolph College senior Philosophy major Christina Crouch attended UVA in the fall of 2012, when the alleged gang rape occurred, but she transferred to Randolph in the fall of 2013.  When the Rolling Stone article was published, Christina saw on Facebook that some of her UVA friends were victim blaming and defending UVA.  The article and people’s reactions to it has since prompted her to write on sexual assault and victim blaming for her spring senior paper. 

Thankfully, UVA has tried to improve fraternities through a new Fraternal Organization Agreement Addendum.  Effective this semester the addendum now requires at least three sober fraternity members to be at any event with one sober member located anywhere alcohol is distributed and at any staircase that leads to bedrooms.  In addition, punch and other pre-mixed drinks are now strictly prohibited. 

While Randolph has no Greek life, since we do not have any officially recognized fraternities or sororities, the College still has restrictions when it comes to functions that include alcohol.

Macon Community After Hour’s, a Randolph club that organizes monthly gatherings that serve alcoholic beverages to students, faculty, and staff, follows similar alcohol restrictions. 

President Sarah Terlizzi says that shots are never served during events “because it takes away from the goal of Macon Community After Hours.  It is a club that promotes the building of community between faculty, staff, and students in a welcoming environment.” 

In addition Macon Community After Hour’s has rules in place to ensure safe and legal drinking.  Anyone under 21 has an “X” placed on their hands, mixed drinks are served with more mixer than alcohol, bartenders must be TIPS certified, and the event must be located in an enclosed area.

Though Randolph institutionally handles alcohol well in some areas, we still have had our own problems with alcohol and, even worse, sexual assault.  The largest controversy pertaining to sexual assault occurred in the spring of 2014 when an anonymous blog claimed that Randolph had under-reported sexual assaults.  In response President Bateman convened a sexual assault assembly for students to discuss the matter.  Then this past fall yet another controversial anonymous blog was created that wished to open a dialogue about feminism and sexual assaults on campus.  So sexual assault has been just as much a problem here as it has been anywhere else, but thankfully some things are being done to ensure a safer environment for all.

Dr. Sara Hirst, who is Assistant Director of the Counseling Center and Coordinator of Sexual Misconduct Education and Advocacy, believes that Randolph is, “dedicated to raising awareness, educating the community, supporting survivors, implementing our grievance procedures, and creating a healthier and safer environment for everyone.” The evidence certainly backs that statement up.

Since the spring of 2014 all of the sexual misconduct policies have been reformed, the Sexual Misconduct Education and Advocacy position was created (now Dr. Hirst), a sexual misconduct website was created (www.randolphcollege.edu/sexualmisconduct), a Clery Compliance Committee was formed, and a Harassment Policy and Advisory Committee was formed.  In addition, all new enrollees at Randolph must complete an online program called “Think About It,” which deals with sexual violence, relationships, and alcohol.  This year’s first year class also received programing from Dr. Hirst specifically on sexual misconduct, consent, Randolph’s grievance procedures, support resources/reporting options, and bystander intervention.

Thankfully there have been increased initiatives to address sexual assault. Nonetheless, these administration led initiatives are only the beginning. Furthermore, Dr. Hirst believes that “students play a tremendously important role in shaping the campus culture and atmosphere around sexual violence.”

While any college administration plays a huge role in sexual assault on campus, students must strive themselves to create the community that they wish to inhabit.  In order for UVA, Randolph College, or any other college community, to fruitfully address sexual assault, it must be a joint effort of all parties involved.

If you have experienced sexual assault or know of someone has, consider contacting Dr. Hirst at 434-947-8119 or email her at shirst@randolphcollege.edu.

You could also call the Sexual Assault Response Program’s (SARP) 24 Hour confidential hotline at 888-947-7273.

Katha Pollitt: Pro at RC

Written By: Grace Gardiner '15 and Katya Schwab '17

Published February 2015

Katha Pollit will visit Randolph College on Wednesday, March 4th to discuss
her new book, Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights.

Poet, columnist, and keen feminist Katha Pollitt visits Randolph College on March 4^th, 2015 to discuss her book, Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights, an astute and comprehensive work which clarifies the abortion debate and champions abortion as an unquestionable right for women and “positive social good.” Pollitt has contributed work to The Nation as a columnist since 1980 and debuted her “Subject to Debate” column in 1995. In addition to receiving awards such as a Whiting Foundation Writing Award in 1992, the National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary in 2003, and an inclusion in the anthology Best American Essays 2003 for her prose, Pollitt has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for her poetry. 

On the significance of Pollitt’s visit to campus, Dr. Jennifer Gauthier of the Communications department commented, “I think many people of the younger generation are afraid of the ‘f-word,’ feminism. I want to recuperate that view and see how we can make feminism work for us.” Dr. Mara Amster of the English Department added, “I am thrilled that our students will get exposure to a public intellectual whose work speaks to issues that are relevant to their lives. What is more important to us than our bodies and what we do with them?”

Pollitt’s talk starts at 8 p.m. in Wimberly Recital Hall.

On February 14^th, 2015, The Sundial co-Editor-in-Chief Grace Gardiner spoke with Pollitt concerning her liberal upbringing, her multifaceted writing career, and her insight into the polemical issues facing women today.

Can you remember a particular moment when you were confronted with feminism that made you realize these were the kinds of issues you wanted to explore in your life?

Hm. I don’t know that there was such an “a-ha” moment for me. I think I’ve always, as far back as I can remember in childhood, been conscious of the ways in which girls and women were second class citizens, long before I even knew that there was such a thing as abortion. Probably some piece of it was that my parents had a very traditionally gendered relationship, although my mother always worked and, in fact, made more money than my father. But the balance of power and the balance of attention belonged to him. And I became ever more aware of that as I was growing up.

I was a very good student and I remember telling my parents that I had gotten an A in something—when I was a little girl, this was—and my father said to me, quoting a then famous poem [“A Farewell,” by Charles Kingsley], “Be good sweet maid, and let who will be clever.” I was furious. I was just enraged. I felt so unvalued for my achievements and accomplishments and like I was being told, you know, “Just be a good person; be nice.” And of course we should all be good people, but why contrast being good with being clever? Why can’t you be both? And it would never be, “Be good sweet boy, and let who will be clever.” I grew up in the 50s and 60s and there was a lot of that attitude around, and probably still is.   

I don’t know if it’s a cliché necessarily, but nowadays it seems that there is a trend of young people going to university and experiencing a kind of “eye-opening,” becoming more liberal in their views. Did you have that same experience?

   

Becoming more liberal in college? No. My parents were communists, so I grew up with very radical views. I arrived at college as what many people leave college as.  

When you were at university, did you find yourself instigating movements on campus and pushing forward these feminist concerns that you had?

Well, I went to college at a very different time. The big activism on campus was opposing the war in Vietnam. There was a large student group called Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS, and I was part of that, so my political activism on campus was mostly anti-war, rather than feminist, of which there was very little.

Did you always see yourself becoming a writer or was there another career that you had in mind for yourself? 

I didn’t have another career in mind for myself. I wanted to be a writer from a pretty early age, and that’s what I set out to do. For a long time I supported myself as a copy-editor and proofreader, but writing was always the thing that mattered. 

Did you have a genre that you gravitated towards first?

First it was poetry, and the prose was added on later. The first prose I wrote, which I did for a number of years, was book reviews. I wrote quite a lot of book reviews, until I was in my thirties, but gradually, the nonfiction, the journalism and the opinion-writing took over from book reviewing, which I still do occasionally.

Is there any separation between the subject matter that you’ve approached in your poetry and that you’ve come to deal with in your column for The Nation?

They’re pretty different. Maybe if I were a better writer they would be more on the same track. I would bring them together, but most of the prose that I write draws off the news in a pretty direct way. In fact, there are fascinating stories that I don’t write about in my column because they happened two weeks earlier and the whole world is finished talking about them. I have to be pretty topical most of the time in my column. Poetry comes out of a different place. 

While reading your book Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights, I found myself getting really frustrated with the illogic and inconsistencies of the anti-abortion position. Do you ever find yourself getting frustrated with the anti-abortionists’ arguments and how do you cope with those feelings?
   

Yes, I do find it very frustrating. One thing that disturbs me a lot and frustrates me greatly is that the anti-abortion movement is not operating in a totally honest way. For example, they claim that there is no need for a life-exception to a total abortion ban because no woman ever dies because she can’t get an abortion. This is factually not true. And in fact, right now, anti-abortion people are praising a woman who refused to have an abortion that her doctor told her was necessary to preserve her life. And she died. They give an example of someone who died because she didn’t get an abortion and then say that no one ever dies because they can’t get an abortion. Well, there’s one person. Savita Halappanavar in Ireland is another: she died because Catholic doctors refused to complete her miscarriage for several days because they were waiting for the fetus—the unviable fetus— to die, and she succumbed to blood poisoning. I would respect them more if they said, “Yes, pregnancy is very dangerous. You could die, but abortion is still wrong. Don’t have one.”

I also find it frustrating that the anti-abortion movement constantly claims that if you have a baby, no matter how young you are, how poor you are, how ill-equipped to be a parent you are, and how unready you are, it’s all going to be great: that little baby is going to be the best thing that ever happened to you. I think that there’s a lot of evidence that that statement really isn’t true. Not always, of course—life is big and complicated—but I think for a lot of women it doesn’t work out well. And I would feel better if they would say, “Look, yeah, abortion might solve your problems. You might have a much happier life if you didn’t have a baby right now. But ending the pregnancy is still wrong.”

The anti-abortion movement puts forward a sugary version of life where there’s always help for you—this isn’t true. There are women who have to give up their children to foster care because they can’t afford to keep them. There are women that end up having to stay with battering partners because they can’t afford to leave them. All kinds of terrible things happen. And being able to control your fertility and have children when you’re in a good place is just an undeniable benefit for women, as opposed to having children in a random way, just because you got pregnant. There is no other important decision in life that people are expected to make like that. In every other area of life we really value people being deliberate, people being careful, people thinking about the future. Certainly with marriage that’s true. No one would ever say, “Oh, you slept with that guy. Marry him.” In our society we think of marriage as a pretty careful decision, one that is based on what both partners want. Yet when it comes to having a baby, accidental pregnancy is—according to abortion opponents—the way to go. And when you consider that half the pregnancies in America are unintended, that’s really pretty shocking.

I think the biggest contradiction in the anti-choice movement is that it does not support birth control.  (I’m not talking about individual people who might think abortion is terrible but support birth control—there are plenty of those.) The movement devotes a great deal of energy to making it harder for people to get birth control, even though any person who has studied this matter will tell you that the way to cut down on abortion is to make birth control very accessible. Instead, abortion opponents try to make a case that modern methods of birth control are actually methods of abortion. So with the IUD, for example, you’re potentially having an abortion every month. The birth control pill, too—that’s a “chemical abortion.” Nobody outside the anti-abortion movement believes this, and you’d think that with all the evidence out there that, in fact, the IUD and the birth control pill are not methods of abortion, they would be doing one of two things: they would be saying, “That’s wonderful! We were wrong; bring on birth control.” Or they would be saying, “Well, we still think those methods cause abortions, no matter what the science says, but what we really love are condoms and diaphragms and sex that doesn’t lead to procreation and sterilization for people who’ve had all the kids they want.”

The real bottom line motivation for the anti-abortion movement is that its proponents really don’t like modern sexual mores. They want sex to be for reproduction. I get letters all the time from people, from anti-abortion people, who treat sex as if it’s some kind of contract to have a baby, who say you should only have sex when you’re prepared to become a parent, even for married people. People don’t live like this. They never have. If that were true, people would only have sex about ten times in their whole lives.   

Furthermore, people love to judge women. Our whole society promotes a very judgmental view of women. Look at reality television, that’s all about women: it’s all about tearing women down and watching women tear each other down. And so much of women’s magazines is about women confessing various failings, but you open up Esquire, for example, and nobody is confessing any failings. Women are encouraged to criticize themselves very deeply and to criticize other women very deeply, and, of course, men are very happy to criticize women very deeply. I think that all has a bearing on the way we see women who have abortion: that we never see them as the woman who has three children and she needs to take care of the children that she has; or the woman who has a child with special needs who needs extra care. It’s always the slut or the incredibly selfish woman or the very privileged woman who thinks, by getting an abortion, she can evade the true duty of women, which is to have children. It’s always about some privileged woman who doesn’t want to give up a trip to Europe. And, as I say in Pro, it’s interesting that it’s always a trip to Europe; it’s never camping in the Ozarks or spending time with her mother in Florida. It’s always a mark of privilege, unless it’s a mark of being a teenage or twenty-something slut.  

     

At the beginning of Pro, you give a brief note on your choice of language and discuss why you’re not going to refer to the anti-abortion position as “pro-life” because that term creates a lot of troubling dichotomies that just aren’t really the case. Do you think that same skewing of language plays out in other feminist issues outside of abortion? Have you encountered any?  

Every movement tries to get its propaganda language used by the other side. And these words are chosen very carefully. For example, one of the causes that I support a lot is marriage equality. You know, it used to be “gay marriage,” then it was “same-sex marriage,” now it’s “marriage equality,” which is fine, except if you weren’t part of the discussion, you might not even know what “marriage equality” is. Language is strategic.

“Pro-life” is a genius coinage. Who isn’t for life? But notice the term doesn’t tell you whose life is supported: the fertilized egg, embryo, and fetus. Not the woman. Furthermore, the term “pro-life” lets the anti-abortion movement convey a false idea that it cares about all people. In fact, if the anti-abortion movement cared about all people, it would be in favor of massive support for women and the poor. But it’s not. It is allied with the Republican Party, which is all cut, cut, cut.

    

Do you ever find yourself enjoying different kinds of media—movies, TV shows, musical artists, books—that themselves have problematic archetypes or narratives? If you recognize that these kinds of media are problematic and can interact with them from a conscious perspective, do you feel that interaction is okay?  

I think it’s best to be as broadminded as you can. I love the novels of Philip Roth, even though my views of sex and gender are very different than his. I enjoy Jonathan Franzen, who is anathema to some feminists. I enjoy a lot of sexist writers or writers that other people would call sexist. I think if you limit yourself to art and shows and TV and movies that completely reflect your own values, you’ll spend a lot of nights at home staring into space. I think it’s good to take your critical self to the movies.

Can you share a piece of advice that someone has given you—a mentor, a professor, or an editor even—about how you navigate these thorny political issues that are very polemical and controversial?

Read everything. I think reading is the most important, most basic intellectual activity, and while you’re in college is the time in your life when you have more time to read than you will probably ever have again. So turn off all those screens and read a book. Read difficult books; read the books that you need help from a professor to understand. Your professors are right there! They can hardly wait to help you through old books, difficult books, weird books. This is the time to do it.